


One breath apart

by Vampiric_Charms



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Coping with war and loss, F/F, Grief, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28153671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: News of Alderaan’s destruction reaches Bo-Katan and her Nite Owls.  Bo-Katan does not know how to accept something that should not be possible, when the truth might be too much to bear - nor when Ahsoka is not there to show her otherwise.
Relationships: Bo-Katan Kryze/Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	One breath apart

**Author's Note:**

> Set during _A New Hope_. Just started wondering how Bo-Katan reacted to Alderaan and...I can’t exactly say I’m sorry for that, ha.
> 
> Title is from [this incredible song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bqe6iPYIYQ&ab_channel=AmyLee) by Amy Lee.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Lady Bo-Katan! Come quickly!”

The yell startled her, and Bo-Katan dropped her spoon into the bowl of tasteless soup she’d been forcing down for a late dinner. Nadja was in the doorward of the mess, helmet in her hand and face clouded with worry. Bo-Katan stood and Nadja beckoned for her to follow.

All of the other Mandalorians were clustered around the cockpit, where the pilot had turned on a subspace frequency that was usually used by the Rebellion to send out disguised messages to their people. Kesi periodically scanned through it for news, though most of what he heard was not relevant to their quest.

Her people looked at her, afraid, as she came up behind them. The bleeding stars of hyperspace beyond the viewscreen cast their faces in quickly shifting shadows, and she watched them with concern as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd to reach Kesi. 

The message he had stumbled upon, coming over their ship’s comm system in patchy waves, was not encoded at all.

_I repeat,_ the broadcaster said, _Alderaan has fallen, there is nothing left. Everyone must go into hiding. There are no survivors. If you are hearing this, save yourselves. Do not return to this sector. To any who are listening, protect our princess and go to ground. Save yourselves._

Bo-Katan shook her head as she listened in shock, the words not making sense. She looked at Kesi, eyes wide as the message slowly started to sink in amongst them all even if it still felt hollow, unreal. Too big to be true. Kesi stared back at her, face slack with fear. 

“The Empire has a new super weapon,” he told her, voice wavering as he repeated what the others had already heard. “They - they destroyed Alderaan. It’s gone. The whole planet is gone.”

“Destroyed?” Bo-Katan repeated, confused and growing more uneasy by the second. “That’s not possible. You can’t destroy an entire planet.”

Nadja spoke up, putting her hand on Bo-Katan’s shoulder. “From what we’ve been able to tell, it’s possible now.”

Bo-Katan reeled toward the teeming corridor, heart thumping in hard bursts against her chest as the message began again, repeating what had already been said. _Save yourselves, save yourselves, do not return. No survivors._

“No,” she said, shoving Nadja’s hand away. “No. It’s not possible. It’s not.”

But it was, and the realization hit her hard as the broadcaster said, over and over and over, _no_ _survivors, do not return_. 

Ahsoka - Ahsoka might have been there. Her home, temporary as it may have been, was on Alderaan with Bail Organa. She so easily could have been there when -

Bo-Katan thought she was going to be sick.

_No survivors, no survivors, Alderaan has fallen._

She pushed her way out of the crowded room, refusing to let anyone see the panic as it curdled up through her stomach and made her face go pale. No one followed her as she stumbled away, toward her private quarters. The door slid open to allow her entrance, and she slammed the button to close it again behind her.

The others - they were afraid because of the Empire, afraid of their new weapon that could destroy worlds. They were right to be afraid, and that was a fear that also pulsed through Bo-Katan as the full impact of it all sunk in. But they didn’t know the personal connection she had there, to the Rebellion they were not a part of.

She never spoke of Ahsoka to them. 

Bo-Katan slumped back against her closed door, her knees wanting to give out beneath her. She forced them steady, forced herself to take deep breaths as her vision began to tunnel dangerously. She couldn’t see, couldn’t get air into her lungs, couldn’t think.

She couldn’t fucking _breathe_. 

Nothing seemed to help her spiral, and she spun around to slam her closed fist into the wall beside the door. Pain shot up through her arm as her gloved hand bounced back from the dent it had made in the metal sheeting. She hit the wall a second time, crying out furiously with the force of it. She hit it again, and again, until she felt blood pooling along her knuckles.

She ripped her glove off, the bracer along with it, and threw both away to clatter uselessly on the floor.

Blood dripped over her hand from the abuse she had put it through, and the abrasions stung in the cold recycled air. She squeezed her fingers into a fist, relishing the pain as her skin stretched too far and using the shock of it to hold herself steady.

_Ahsoka_ , she thought loudly, wondering with a manic little laugh if Ahsoka would be able to hear her. A ridiculous idea, and she slammed her body back against the wall so she could slide down it to the ground like a child having a tantrum.

She wondered if she would even know, if Ahsoka was dead.

Or if she would just be left waiting, for the rest of her life, to learn of her only friend’s fate.

She rocked her head back into the wall this time, leaving it there and staring blankly up at the blurry ceiling as a dull ache radiated through her tight chest. Nausea welled in her stomach the longer she sat, and she suddenly lurched to her feet again, arriving at the sink in her ‘fresher just in time to start dry heaving. Nothing came up except thin soup, and she leaned heavily over the basin, hating herself.

A chime sounded from her door, and Bo-Katan’s head snapped up. 

She caught sight of herself in the mirror and scowled, wanting to smash the dirty glass to pieces. The chime came again. 

“What?” she snapped loudly, not even bothering to leave the refresher to open the door. It was locked, anyway. Whoever was there would have to yell through the metal and she could not care less. Let them scream all they wanted.

She wanted to scream, herself, to yell and cry until she couldn’t breathe, until she blacked out with the agony of it.

She did none of those things.

“It’s Nadja, Lady Bo-Katan,” came the muffled response. “Do you have new orders for us?”

Bo-Katan stared at her reflection, at the sick paleness of her cheeks and the blue tint to her lips, her eyelids. She looked ill. She _felt_ ill. No. She felt like she was losing her fucking mind, like all her thethers had been cut loose and she was adrift inside her own head. Her stomach hitched in another dry heave, and she wiped angrily at the saliva and bile on her lips.

The motion left blood smeared there, instead, from her injured knuckles.

“Lady Bo-Katan?”

“No,” Bo-Katan replied harshly, hearing the futile rage in her own voice. “Stay on course. Nothing has changed.”

She heard Nadja’s boots in the corridor as she left. At a loss and trying desperately to get her mind to stop, to _just_ _fucking_ _stop,_ thinking, she splashed a handful of cold water on her face and left the refresher without looking at the mirror again. 

But then she just stood in the middle of her empty room, aimless.

There was a small comm system built into her desk, and she dragged her leaden feet over to it. Not bothering to sit, not even knowing if she wanted to, she powered the system on and entered her personal code, and then the frequency code she and Ahsoka shared between them. The hail went out. There was no response.

She sent the ping again. Nothing returned.

_No survivors._

Switching over to send a voice transmission instead, she quickly said, “Ahsoka, it’s Bo-Katan. I need to speak with you.” Those few words were all she could manage through her tight throat, but she sent it just the same. The message went through, indicators showing Ahsoka’s comm had received it and the message on that end remained unviewed.

Bo-Katan paced away from her desk, eyes swimming and unable to focus.

_No survivors, save yourselves._

For the first time since she lost Satine, since she had lost all of Mandalore, Bo-Katan did not know what to do.

She stumbled to her knees at the side of her bed and crossed her arms on the mattress, dropping her head down to rest against the beskar she hadn’t yet removed. Her whole body felt heavy, too heavy to be real, even as she felt as though the tiniest nudge would send her tumbling into nothingness. 

This was too much. These emotions were _too much_.

She felt weak with them, overwhelmed with the weight of it all in her struggling heart. She sucked in a single gasping sob and choked down the rest until her shoulders trembled. And then - nothing. She felt nothing. Numbness settled over her, dense and welcome.

Ahsoka was not dead. She couldn’t be. Bo-Katan refused to believe it. She _wouldn’t_ believe it, not until someone said the words aloud or until she saw the body herself.

Ahsoka was not dead.

She wasn’t.

No.

No.


End file.
